Poetry and Urban Poverty

I recently performed some poetry at Salon Camden Centre for Urban Dialogue (www.saloncamden.com). In collaboration with Manifesto, they launched a new Poetry Prose Photography series called “Why Am I So Poor” to discuss issues of urban poverty in Toronto.

The evening was an interesting mix of tension and story sharing. The room was full of politicians, poets and city movers and shakers and it was an honour to perform along side some poets whom I deeply respect.

2 thoughts on “Poetry and Urban Poverty”

Poverty is poverty. Or is it? In my admittedly limited experience
with impoverishment here in Ontario, I’ve come across two main categories of
poverty and I’ve loosely defined them.

In my first categorization I describe those victims I’ve
come across that are caught in the inner-city concrete corrals called
government housing-projects—blatant, systemic “warehouses” for
perceived objectionable, second-class folks. The second, and more prevalent, is
peopled by the so-called working-poor—individuals and families that are
paddling hard but never seem to get ahead at all. These are marginally (if at
all) included in the debt/credit shitstem and are always guessing
about the next couple of meals and are constantly worried if they’ll have a
place to lay their head.

Regardless of how we categorize the experience the basic
outcomes seem identical: In both, there are precious lives locked in a cycle
that perpetuates desperation and hopelessness, with an existence relegated to
seeing the cheese, but never being quite able to bite in.

And despite the misconception: The majority are not
looking for hand-outs. They are hard-working salt-of-the-earth folk looking for
a hand-up and out of the hole they’re in.

I agree with you, the answers needed are not solely
governmental, neither are the individuals (and their families) totally without
a share of ownership in the solution but where do we begin to address the
evident realities of the significant disparity in basic financial outcomes?

I believe part of the answer lies in focus—focusing attentions and resources on a few critical grassroots areas, namely:

Investing more dollars into preventative healthcare and incentivizing individuals to take ownership and sustain their own health and well-being outcomes
Lessen the real tax-burden on students and the working-poor
Investing in access to affordable Education and Skills-training
Ensuring access to affordable Legal Representation and Legal Process
Funding and providing incentives for creating affordable Homes and Neighbourhoods
Ensuring early access to solid Financial Education
Provide capital and fund incentives for cottage industries and small businesses
Promote and fund sustainable neighbourhoods and environments
Continue to provide communities with reasonable access to enabling technologies such as computers and Internet access

In regards to the last point you made (Continue to provide communities with reasonable access to enabling technologies such as computers and Internet access Industry Canada funds) The Community Access Program, which is the program I work with, provides just this. But its not widely publicized or known.

To your list, I would also add:

– A central resource for youth/ or more funding and collaboration between existing umbrella organizations like the YES program and GYC.
– Per capita state funding for the arts is lagging behind and it doesn’t make sense cause investing in arts and culture is a proven multiplier and contributes to a healthy economy.
– women make up 70% of the part time workforce > Do folks understand the lack of job security entailed with part time contract work? I ask because this is something I realized the hard way.
-The feminization and racialization of poverty needs to be addressed at a policy level.
– Forward thinking investment in human capital creation (venture capital and social enterprise) focusing on things that can produce high employment rate.
– High employment is not enough > after the recession “job recovery” has been pretty stable. But what kind of job recovery is the real question. When we talk about the changing nature of the workforce, its not a weather forecast – this is a business decision that people are living.
– More concise mechanisms for workplace integration of newcomers and new graduates so that new immigrants and recent graduates do not find themselves in entry level jobs, instead of jobs that utilize their skills, talents and experience.